Trust
by Scribe of the Shire
Summary: Non-specific time in Season 6. Booth's taken a bullet for Bones...again. Because really, what wouldn't he do for her?


"Booth," she said sternly.

"Bones," he replied mockingly.

"I'm serious Booth, you cannot keep taking bullets for me. I can't let you do this anymore."

"Why not Bones? I'm your gun, remember? My job is to catch bad guys and protect you in the field. Partners watch out for each other Bones."

"That may be, Booth, but I find that it is impossible for me to justify you taking a bullet for me, when you have so many reasons to live. I know you think you're selfless, Booth, but in this case your actions were completely self_ish_."

"What? Bones, I took a _bullet_ for you –"

"Exactly. But logically, who is needed more? Parker needs you, Pops, the FBI, and Hannah. They all need you Booth. Who needs me?" The question was meant to be rhetorical, and Booth recognized that, but he couldn't resist answering.

"I do," he declared quietly. "I need you Bones. And Russ, Amy, and the girls. And your dad. They all need you."

"Russ and Amy and their family would actually benefit most from my death, considering my will leaves them will a substantial amount of money. And my father is rarely around, and he has Russ to look after. And you…you have Hannah now."

"I may have Hannah in my life now Bones, but that doesn't mean I can't have you too." She was silent for a moment.

"Hey Bones?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Technically speaking, you did just ask me a question—"

"Why did you say no?" he interrupted. A brief pause.

"I told you that night, Booth. To protect you. Didn't you say that's what partners do? Protect each other?"

"Well, yeah, but what were you protecting me from? I just…I think about that night a lot, Bones, and I don't really know if I get it." She pauses again as she appears to work up the courage to say something.

"Me. I was…protecting you from me." She responded. He looked at her, bewilderment evident on his face. "You said you knew. Well _I_ knew, from the beginning, that if we did this, if we gave a romantic relationship a chance, we would get hurt. I can't do relationships, Booth, but you _need_ them. I can't give you what you need, what you want."

"Who said that's what I want? I wanted…_want_ you Bones. Any way I can have you. If that means no marriage, then it means no marriage. I accepted a long time ago that this wasn't gonna be easy, that it would be totally unconventional. I understood that, Bones, that night. I guess what I really wanna know is, why didn't you trust me to love you?"

"Trust you? Booth, I trust you implicitly. I know you would have given me your whole self, and I know I would have given you my whole self, too. I never, not even for a minute, doubted that. That was the problem. I couldn't let you do that, commit yourself to a relationship completely, knowing that I would hurt you in the end. I don't know how to do anything but end relationships Booth. Obviously, I have never had a permanent romantic partner. I don't know what thirty or forty or fifty years feels like, looks like. It was never a question of trusting you, Booth, but trusting myself. I couldn't trust myself _not_ to hurt you, somehow." He looked at her for a long moment, their eyes locked onto the others' in fear of losing the fleeting connection.

"What if _I_ trusted you, Bones? What if I trusted you enough to ask you to take that step? To try this thing between us, whatever it may be and to whatever end? I love you, Bones. Not loved, as in past tense; love. Present. Right now. Trust me. Trust yourself. Trust _us_." Tears shown in her eyes; she recognized defeat.

"I want to," she whispered, and he almost missed her words as the monitors beeped around them, "so badly, Booth."

"Then do it, Bones. Just do it. Let go of your control. Trust _this_."

And he brought one arm up around her neck, pulling her head to his and his mouth to hers. Their lips connected as the link was forged in the nerves and dendrons of her brain. Heart and mind became one, and finally, after long torturous months, the background faded away just as it once had for them. The beeps and chirps of the hospital, the squeak of someone's sneakers as they walked down the hallway, the fact that he had a girlfriend worrying about him back at his place, all melted into nothingness and unimportance as they reestablished what _they_ were. Because they could not be as they had been before Afghanistan, before Maluku, before _that night_, but they also could not continue on as they had been. They were something new entirely now, something better, something greater. Together, they caught up to their reality and found their eventually.


End file.
